Windows | NT Family 36566

What Do I need to upgrade based on this to have windows 11?
https://redd.it/1l9v66h
@r_Windows

1 view03:09

Windows 11; continued worsening quality and experience, at what cost?

I've been an avid Windows user for decades -- I grew up with the OS, learned its ins and outs, stressed it to its limits, and even spotted the occasional harmless bug here and there.

Most of these bugs were harmless, like the fact that in some versions the volume slider in the notification area was off by 1 from the control panel Sound applet, but only when below 50 (so one of the sliders would mute at 1, the other at 0).

This attention of detail was something that I grew to appreciate, as finding the occasional bug in the OS itself was rare but always interesting as a result of how well thought-out and properly tested and vetted everything was. It also taught me on what to focus on in software development, with an attention to detail _and_ the overall user experience (and always support alternate methods of achieving the same thing, to teach users seamlessly as part of the application).

But over the years I've seen a noticeable degradation of quality across the operating system, to the point where I'm asking if there's no one awake at the wheel at Microsoft.

Let's take the audio subsystem as an example. The degradation of quality is pretty much everywhere, of this one in particular is one of the more noticeable ones that people might not even realize that it used to be different. This is a short timeline of events from the top of my head to get an idea of what I mean:

* Back in 2021 Windows received the "Unified audio endpoint" update for Bluetooth devices. This meant that instead of different audio devices for a Bluetooth headset that supported a high quality output device and a low quality/low latency output device, you were now not given a choice, and Windows would automatically switch to the low quality/low latency output device **every time the microphone was activated**.

* If you've ever used a BT headset in Windows over the last few years and noticed how the audio quality drops when the microphone is activated, this is why. Before this update you could often use the high quality output device with the microphone -- giving you high quality sound while in meetings and calls -- but no more after this update was released.

* Disabling this behavior is still not easily accessible to users four years later in 2025, and Microsoft have never (as far as I am aware) publicly commented upon how their new vaunted feature actually reduced the audio quality in many use cases. This feature is why I still today cannot stand using a Bluetooth headset on Windows at work -- the experience is utter shite compared to using alternate connectivity methods.

* In the early lifetime of Windows 11, Microsoft had added a surround sound/channel layout (Stereo, 5.1, 7.1, etc) setting to the Sound section of the Settings app. You know, the stuff that's already available in the Sounds control panel applet since decades ago. Should be simple, right? However those of us who used it quickly realized that **it didn't even work** and more often than not just caused your surround sound system to output noisy garbage every time a sound was played. If you look in the Settings app, that specific option no longer remains and haven't for years now -- Microsoft seemingly disabled it once they realized how broken it was. You have since been pushed back into the legacy Sound control panel applet to adjust something simple as the speaker layout of your system.

* After last month's update, it soon became obvious that they once again had screwed around with the sound system to a ridiculous degree -- now with the actual channel layouts themselves. I use a 5.1 surround sound system that's connected over HDMI. This is an extremely basic setup that have worked fine for decades at this point. Yet however even something this basic occasionally broke after the last update, where the channel setup would be completely screwed up, to the point where my rear speakers would act as the front speakers, my front left + right speakers act as the center and subwoofer, and none of my speakers would

1 view04:09